Chicago-based American Medical News will cease publication

Periodical, founded in 1958, victim of decline in print advertising revenues

August 12, 2013|By Peter Frost | Tribune reporter

A screen grab of the American Medical News website, which will fold along with its companion print publication.

The decline of the American periodical publishing business has claimed another victim.

American Medical News, the long-running biweekly publication of the American Medical Association, will fold after it prints its last edition Sept. 9.

The Chicago-based news source, which has a 24-issue-a-year print edition and a website updated daily, employs about 20 people, most of whom are journalists based in Chicago. It also has a small Washington bureau and workers in New Jersey.

The AMA, the nation’s largest professional organization for doctors, blamed the closure on a persistent and irreversible decline in print advertising revenues used to support its editorial operation, as well as increasing fragmentation and competition in the medical news market.

Tom Easley, senior vice president and publisher of periodic publications at the Chicago-based nonprofit association, said the publication, also known as AM News, has lost money in each of the past 10 years.

During the past two years, Easley said, those losses have been “significant,” and the publication projected an even worse 2014. In past years, shortfalls were subsidized from operating gains posted by 10 sister publications, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, a weekly, peer-reviewed medical journal.

The association, Easley said, “has been very supportive in continuing to invest in publishing, but it came to a point this year … where it was creating a significant loss and not really contributing substantially to the strategic future of our publishing portfolio.”

The AMA’s publishing division brought in $55.8 million in 2012 revenue, down more than 14 percent from $65.2 million in 2011, according to the organization’s annual report. The AMA blamed the decline primarily on an $8.7 million decline in print advertising sales.

American Medical News, founded in 1958 and read by physicians and health care administrators across the United States, had a print circulation of about 208,000 according to BPA Worldwide, a nonprofit that audits media publications.

AM News said about 90 percent of its recipients were physicians. Its reporters covered news related to the medical field, with a focus on serving primary care doctors with topics that included business, policy, public health and legal issues.

While the publication sold a small number of paid subscriptions — less than 1 percent, according to BPA — the vast majority of its copies were distributed to targeted physicians and AMA members who requested copies.

None of the association’s other publications is affected by the closure.

Association publications represent some of the largest magazines in the industry. Two titles by AARP top the list of the largest 25 consumer publications in the country, each with a circulation of slightly less than 22 million, according to the latest report from the Alliance for Audited Media.

Print publications of all stripes, including newspapers, magazines and newsletters, have struggled to replace declining advertising volume fueled by the rise of digital competition.

In the first half of 2013, 29 magazines folded, according to MediaFinder.com, an online database of U.S. and Canadian publications. While that’s down from 48 in the first six months of 2012, financial pressures continue as readers migrate to digital platforms.

“While we’ve been able to generate some usage online and a small online advertising revenue stream, there really was no opportunity for us to be able to cover all of our expenses with an online-only model,” Easley said. “I have a reverence for good journalism, and AM News was still producing very good journalism. That made today’s decision especially difficult.”

Content on the amednews.com website is expected to remain available for the remainder of the year, and Easley said his team is exploring ways to use and package that information. The news site also has a robust following on social media sites and distributes digital alerts to subscribers, including the popular features AMA Morning Rounds and AMA Wire, each of which distributes news and content geared toward physicians.

Those services might continue, but most likely with content aggregated from other news sources, Easley said.

Workers’ last day is scheduled for Aug. 28. Some will be considered for other open positions within the organization.